Believe in Angels
by rurousha
Summary: Over twenty years before the appearance of Kira, L meets a shinigami. Death Note x Bleach crossover. Complete two-shot.
1. Age 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or Bleach.

Spoilers for L and Watari's real names.

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**Believe in Angels, Part 1**

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L – Age 4

She sighed and collapsed on a hospital bench in the hallway not far from the room she had just come from. It had been a long day. There had been a major traffic accident at dusk, and she had sent three people to Soul Society right there on the sidewalk. Then she had followed the ambulance to the hospital and had just sent two more that died a few hours later. The time in between had been spent tracking down stray ghosts in the hospital and making sure they got sent before they got the chance to turn into Hollows. It was exhausting, and the shinigami was looking forward to the end of her mission in a few days.

"Your clothes are funny."

The young woman looked over from where she was relaxing on the bench. A small boy was standing by her feet and looking up at her with wide, glassy eyes. She looked over to her other side. No one. The hallway was empty. So the boy had to be speaking to her. She looked back to the boy.

"Well, your hair's funny. I mean, really, do you even comb it at all?"

The boy shook his head.

"…Oh."

"Why are you wearing funny clothes?" the boy asked.

"It's my uniform. Just like how the doctors and nurses wear scrubs."

"I don't like the doctors."

"No? You should. They work very hard to help sick and injured people."

The boy thought about this for a minute. He looked back at her for a second before climbing up onto the bench to sit next to her. He then proceeded to stare at her, unblinking, for a solid minute.

She resisted the urge to look away.

The boy leaned in a little closer but didn't lower his voice. "My mommy and daddy are dead, but the doctors don't want to tell me that. They're over there." He pointed down another hallway nearby.

The young shinigami paused. She had just come from that very hallway herself where she had performed the sending ritual on the couple from the accident, a husband and wife. This might explain why the boy could see her. If this was the couple's son, then it was possible that he was in enough shock to see the world of spirits. It was rare, but once in a great while, a person was able to see the shinigami that sent their loved one. This usually only happened with very young children, though. She had always thought that this was simply because kids were just capable of seeing things that adults knew were impossible.

"How old are you, kiddo?"

The boy held up four fingers.

"Four? What does a four-year-old know about death?"

He just shrugged. "Everyone dies."

Maybe he wasn't in shock, then. Maybe he was just a very, very practical four-year-old.

"Yes, I guess everyone does."

"I had a kitty die once." The boy leaned down until he was on his hands and knees on the bench. Then he twitched his nose as if he had whiskers of his own.

"Oh yeah?"

"It wasn't my kitty. I saw it get hit by a car. I went over to see if it was okay, but it died on the street." Then the boy shifted his weight incorrectly, and his hand slipped off the bench.

"Whoa!" The woman snapped her hand out and caught the boy by the back of his coat before he fell clean off the bench and landed on his face. She then lifted him up with both hands and sat him down on the bench properly. "Careful."

The boy hadn't screamed or given any kind of startled noise. His blank, wide-eyed expression never even changed.

"You okay, kiddo?"

The boy looked up at her and nodded.

"What's your name, midget?"

"L."

"Elle? Like Ella? Isn't that a girl's name here in Germany?" Actually, she was sure it was a girl's name anywhere she had ever heard it. Humans were so odd.

"No, L, like the letter." He used his pointer finger and wrote the letter in the air.

"Just L? Your parents weren't very creative, were they?"

The boy just shrugged.

"You hungry, L?"

He nodded again.

"Do you have any money on you? I think I saw a vending machine around here."

"I have money," L said, "but I can't reach the buttons."

"I'll take care of that for you. Let's go."

She took little L's hands and helped him hop off the bench. They soon found a vending machine around the corner, in the opposite direction of L's dead parents.

"So what do you want, kiddo?"

"Reese's peanut butter cups," L said as he handed the woman some coins.

"Have you had any dinner yet?" she asked. L shook his head.

"How about some pretzels or crackers instead? Sugar on an empty stomach will make you sick."

"I like Reese's."

"I'll get both for you, but you have to eat the pretzels first, okay?"

"…Okay."

She retrieved both items and handed the pretzels to L and stuck the peanut butter cups in his coat pocket. L opened the packet of pretzels and started nibbling on one. Then the woman took L's available hand and led him back down the empty hall. Once they reached the bench where they first met, she knelt down to L's level to look him in the eyes.

"I've got to get back to work," she said. "Someone should be coming to pick you up soon. Are you going to be okay by yourself until then?"

L opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by another voice coming from the direction of his parents' room.

"There he is."

A doctor walked around the corner towards him, followed by an older gentleman in a suit.

"Mister Lawliet, you shouldn't go wandering off like that," the doctor scolded as he came up to the boy.

L said nothing but just looked up at the two men. The older man that L didn't recognize knelt down in front of him.

"Hello L," he said in slightly accented German. "I'm Quillish Wammy. I'll be taking care of you from now on."

L broke eye contact with the man and looked to his side. The woman from before wasn't there anymore. He looked back to the man.

"Mister Wammy?"

"Yes?"

"Do you believe in angels?"

Wammy gave a soft, sad smile and shook his head. "No, L, I do not."

L paused. "Me neither."

On his way out of the hospital, L threw away the pretzels. Mister Wammy said he could have the candy after all.

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To be continued…

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Pointless, slow, and anticlimactic. Very characteristic of my fanfiction.


	2. Age 26

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or Bleach

Spoilers for chapter 57 or episode 25 of Death Note.

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**Believe in Angels, Part 2**

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L – Formerly age 26

L looked across the room to where Light and the rest of the police force were yelling over his body. So he'd been right all along. Light was Kira. But the knowledge had come too late.

L tugged lightly at the broken chain that was embedded into his chest. Somehow he hadn't thought death would be like this. In fact, he hadn't thought death would be like anything. People were born, they lived, and then they died. Their bodies decomposed or were destroyed, but that was it. There was no spirit that lived on, no afterlife. Death was nothingness.

As L stared at his own lifeless body being held in his greatest rival's arms, he realized for the second time in his remembrance that he really did not like being wrong.

"Oi, dead man!"

L turned around to see a young woman wearing a black gi and hakama and a katana walking towards him from the main entrance. She glanced over at the scene nearby as she came up to him.

"Oh good, you've only just died. That'll make things easier. Less chance of a Hollow catching your scent. They've been running rampant recently what with all the unnatural deaths, you know."

L didn't know what a Hollow was, but he decided not to ask for now. He just watched as Light and the others scattered to search for the shinigami that had killed him.

The woman in black walked over to the computers and studied the death note on the desk.

"So it was a death note after all. Figures. First Captain Kuchiki's going to have a conniption over this. I hope he finally decides to do something about those stupid lower shinigami now."

"Lower shinigami?" L asks. "Does that make you a higher shinigami?"

"Hm?" The woman turned back to L as if she only just remembered that he was there. "Higher shinigami? Yeah, I guess you could call us that. We send spirits like yourself to Soul Society and purify Hollows. But the sheer number of people dying recently has left some very angry spirits and way too many Hollows. I wish I could confiscate this Death Note, but technically it's not illegal to use it."

"You're telling me that mass murder isn't illegal?"

The shinigami smirked. "Sorry, kiddo. Murder is a mortal sin, not an immortal one. It's the mortals' job to govern their own, not ours."

"Yes," L agreed, "it was my job. I was supposed to catch him."

The shinigami looked down at her feet where L's body had been left on the floor. "Well done," she said.

"I'll win in the end." There was no hesitancy in his voice.

She shrugged. "If you say so, kiddo."

"Kiddo? I am an adult. Do you call even those older than you 'kiddo'?"

"I sincerely doubt that any mortal is older than me. We shinigami age slower than you humans."

"That makes sense." L shoved his thumb into his mouth. "You look little different from when I first saw you."

"First saw me?" She raised an eyebrow as if doubting L's sanity. "What, did you die twice?"

"No. You were there twenty-two years ago when my parents died."

"I only started working Japan about ten years ago."

"It was in Germany."

"I did run missions in Germany for a little while. Hmm…" She studied L's hunched form for a few seconds. "It was in a hospital. You were just a child. I got you food from the vending machine. Your name's L, right?"

L nodded. "I had convinced myself that you were an angel I had created in my mind to cope with my parents' death."

The shinigami burst out laughing. "An angel?!" she said between gasps. "That's a new one."

"You were the last person to ever insist that I eat healthy."

"Yeah," she said as she lifted a bag full of panda cookies off the desk, "I can see someone's been indulging your bad habits just a little."

"Ryuuzaki!"

The two spirits looked over as Watari ran into the room through the wall. He too had a chain hanging from his chest.

"Watari." L didn't move from his spot in the middle of the room.

"Oh good, you're here. Keeps me from having to track you down." The shinigami smiled at the newcomer.

"This other kind of shinigami is apparently here to send us to Soul Society," L explained.

"And if you two don't mind, I do have a job to do." She hopped over L's corpse towards a rather startled-looking Watari. She placed her hand on the hilt of her zanpatou.

Watari stared at her disrespect of L's body. "You're rather insensitive for one that works with dead people every day."

"Shockingly enough," she drew the sword, "sensitivity and tact aren't job requirements." Then she slammed the end into Watari's forehead. His form began to glow and slowly sink into the ground.

"Will I see L in this Soul Society?" Watari asked as his torso began to disappear.

"Highly unlikely."

And then he was gone. The shinigami braced the blunt side of her sword on her shoulder and turned back to L.

"You ready, kiddo?"

L nodded. "I don't wish to stay."

"Good." She walked over to him and shoved the end of her sword between his bangs. He too glowed and eventually faded all together. "I wouldn't have let you anyway."

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The end.

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So, who was the shinigami woman? Rukia? Another character from Bleach? An original character? Your call.

And yes, I did set this in Bleach's future in my own world where Kuchiki Byakuya eventually becomes the head captain. Come on, who else is qualified for the job?


End file.
